


Don’t Panic (Except Do Because This Is Very Much A ‘Panic’ Sort of Situation)

by fandomsandcake



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Derek Takes Care Of Stiles, Derek is grumpy and broody except actually not, Fluff and Humor, Gen, I guess this could be read as platonic, M/M, Snow Storm, Stiles is grumpy and sarcastic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-24
Updated: 2013-09-24
Packaged: 2017-12-27 12:14:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/978728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fandomsandcake/pseuds/fandomsandcake
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles actually really, really hates Derek, because it’s cold and snowing and they’re about to die.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Don’t Panic (Except Do Because This Is Very Much A ‘Panic’ Sort of Situation)

**Author's Note:**

> Just a heads up, Stiles has a panic attack in this. So if that will in any way bother you, please read with great caution.
> 
> This could, I suppose, be read as absolutely platonic and brotherly but, on the other hand, it is also very blatantly Sterek. Read it however you would like.  
> This is dedicated to myself because I wrote it and I can't dedicate anything else to Ashley (a.k.a. Twitter user @jenseggackles) because she'll think I'm weird and I don't know what the etiquette related to story-dedication is and it doesn't seem that anyone has written a handbook.

Firstly: it’s cold. It’s really cold; the kind of cold that seeps in past your skin and into your bones, the kind of cold that explorers and survivors of lost-in-Antarctica-level traumatic events talk about; the one that overcomes all else until it is your paramount and only sensation. Secondly: this is all Derek’s fault. 

“I _hate_ you!” Stiles says, trying hard not to notice the way his throat already feels raw and his lips wind-bitten and dry. 

“It’s not _my_ fault,” Derek replies sharply, somehow managing to still look perfectly fine and not like he’s probably about to die in the middle of the goddamn woods from frostbite. Or maybe he won’t and his super-dooper werewolf powers will save the day (for him) and tomorrow Stiles’ dad will find his frozen, mutilated corpse still in this exact same spot and Derek will be out chasing squirrels or whatever it is that Alpha werewolves do when they’re not being completely un-helpful and letting seventeen-year-olds freeze to death. 

“It _so_ is your fault!” Stiles reminds him. “Very, very much your fault. More your fault than any other fault. We could write a book about why this is your fault, starting with the fact that you’re a _werewolf_ – the _Alpha werewolf_ – and should have known that there was going to be a freaking blizzard and that, hey, maybe you should leave the human back at home instead of coming and getting them while they busy doing research to help _your_ sorry ass in the first place and –”

“Stiles?”

“ _What_?” because this is Derek’s fault and he _hates_ him. He really, honest to God and Buddha and Zeus hates him and if there weren’t a high probability that he would just Hulk-out and tear him several new ones, and the fact that he can’t actually feel any of his limbs, Stiles would _kill_ him. 

“Shut up.”

“No!” Stiles says, because if he’s going to die then he’s going to do it in style. And by style he means by yelling at Derek because he _hates_ him. “This is your fault! I’m going to die and – _oh my god I’m going to die_!”

He’s going to cease to exist. There will be zero Stiles Stilinski left on this earth, except a _dead_ Stiles Stilinski, a.k.a. him, because he’ll be _dead_. 

“You’re not going to die,” Derek says flatly, looking completely calm and nonchalant from where he leans up against a tree, eyes half-closed and facing the sky and arms crossed in a way that is more grumpy and brooding than anything that would do anything to keep him warm, which _isn’t fair_.

“I am!” Stiles squeaks, and then it really hits him, what dying means. “And my dad is going to have to find me and then he’ll be sad and I can’t just leave him! My dad. I’ll never get to see my dad again and –”

“Stiles,” Derek says again and somehow he’s right up close to him, and Stiles doesn’t know when that happened. What he does know is that there’s something _squeezing_ inside of him, constricting his breathing, a tidal wave of dark, scary, far-too-familiar panic rolling over him.

“Panic attack,” he breathes. “I’m having a – _oh my god_.” His hands reach out and grab the nearest _anything_ , which just happens to be Derek’s leather jacket, except he barely even registers it, his focus wavering in and out. He can’t… he can’t _concentrate_. He can’t make himself stop shaking. He can’t _breathe_.

“Stiles,” Derek says, and if his voice is anything to go by he’s been saying his name for a while now. “Stiles, stop.”

Stiles thinks he manages a half-hearted grin, but it probably comes across as more of a grimace. “C-can’t. I don’t,” he tries to take a deep breath but it feels like his lungs have disappeared and the air won’t go in and then when it does it won’t come back out again. “Don’t know how. _Derek_.”

“Stiles, how can I help you?” he asks, and he sounds almost panicked, but hey, Stiles can hardly be one to gauge what is and isn’t panic right now because he’s kind of preoccupied with his _own_ panic. 

And then suddenly there are arms wrapping themselves around him and a warm torso that smells faintly of cinnamon and dirt and earth and strongly of just _Derek_ pressing into his face, and he isn’t really sure what’s going on, except then he _is_ and he can _breathe_. “What’re you doing?” even to his own ears he sounds shaky and spaced-out, and if the situation were anything other than what it is, he’d be embarrassed about being this vulnerable around Derek. 

“Hopefully stopping you dying,” Derek says, and Stiles can feel the words as he says them; in his muscles, which tighten and loosen with the change of syllables; in his breath, which tickles Stiles’ ear, warm against the relentless cold of the air; and then, outside of all of that, he can _feel_ it, ethereal and bodiless, a discord of sensation that buries itself deep within him, unexplainable and different to anything Stiles has ever felt before.

“What’re you doing?” Stiles asks again, because it’s probably some weird, werewolf calming power and he’d like to know if he’s being magically sedated thank-you-very-much.

“I just told you,” Derek replies, and Stiles can hear his eyebrows rising.

“No, with the whole… _tingles._ ” 

Derek is silent for a moment before he says, “Stiles, I’m not doing anything.”

“Oh,” and _oh_. That’s… oh. “So you just go handing out free tingles often do you?” And holy hell he needs to stop talking before he embarrasses himself to the point of no return, but then Derek shifts and he looks at him and Stiles’ mouth starts doing that thing where it spews words without first consulting his brain. “I mean, thanks. For not wanting me to die. That’s cool. I mean I’ve always just sort of assumed you hate me because you know, you do that whole _I’m angry with the world and especially you_ number but maybe that’s just you. But thanks. Again. I mean you could have just let me die and… actually no I still could die! We’re still in the middle of a blizzard and don’t think your tingle powers made me forget that! I still hate you! I’d hate you with a burning passion but I _can’t_ because I’m too cold to burn so I hate you! With a freezing passion! An ice-cold, Antarctic passion and _oh no_ don’t think that eyebrow thing is going to make me hate you any less, in fact it makes me hate you more.” Stiles pauses, and then, because he is an articulate genius, finishes with, “I hate you,” just to make sure the message sinks in.

“I could just leave,” Derek says, loosening his grip, but Stiles’ hands reach out and wrap around his neck, completely contradicting everything his brain is telling them to do. He needs to work on the communication between his brain and his everywhere else, maybe put his limbs and mouth in detention for a while for _not listening_. 

Because he’s busy freaking out about the fact that his body is, as the French would say, a _disobedient little shite_ , he doesn’t pick up on the fact that Derek is _teasing_ him until their eyes lock and he catches that glint and that quirk at the corner of his mouth, and really, it just makes him hate Derek even more.

“Ice-cold passion, my friend,” Stiles reinstates. “I hate you with an _ice-cold_ passion.”

“No you don’t.”

“ _Yes I do_!”

“No,” Derek says, and he _smiles_ and yeah, it’s still 30% smirk and 30% _I’m going to rip your intestines out with my bare hands_ , there is at least 40% actual-smile there. 

“Stop smiling! I’m about to _die_!” Stiles snaps, and he kind of really wishes Scott were here because Scott would do something to prevent the whole dying thing. Scott would huddle for warmth or… “ _Oh_.”

Derek effortlessly raises an eyebrow, a skill which, while undeniably cool, is also undeniably annoying. “We’re huddling for warmth aren’t we?” Stiles asks. “You’re not letting me die.”

“Did you think I was actually initiating physical contact with you because I _wanted_ to?” Derek says, actually sounding slightly put off.

“Hey, I’m not _that_ bad!”

Derek is silent for a moment, and Stiles’ shivers, as much from the way Derek is quietly appraising him, sizing him up, as from the cold. Really, it isn’t even that noticeable anymore, because Derek is like a furnace, and he’s wrapped around Stiles in all the right ways. His own personal heater, burning and dark and _very, very welcome_ in the bleak desolation and freezing bitterness of the snow, all eyebrows and leather and _heat_ and he sears into Stiles and it’s something more than physical, an emotional pull and bubble and grasping desperation.

“You’re not,” Derek finally says, and it takes Stiles by surprise. 

This would usually be when he would interject with a witty and hilarious rejoinder, and Derek would glare at him and skulk off, or alternately glare and push him against something, but he can’t make words happen, and that’s possibly weirder than the rest of this scenario put together. 

“I still hate you,” he settles on after a beat.

 “I don’t actually hate you,” Derek counters, and they don’t really talk much after that, because Stiles gives up and angrily buries his head in Derek’s shoulder, and it’s warm and comfortable, and oddly enough Stiles isn’t freaking out, and Derek isn’t freaking out, and it’s cold and scary and they’re in the middle of nowhere, except soon he kind of forgets that. Derek is this blaze of everything that Stiles needs right now to keep him safe; a shield against the tempest, a blanket against the cold, strong, firm arms holding him down and keeping him safe while the storm tears at everything around them. 

But it’s still all Derek’s fault. 


End file.
